Medical professionals in South Texas have identified another disease that has apparently slipped across the border – caused by a rare brain worm that can be fatal and is being spread by unsanitary food-handling practices.
While not yet classified as a "major outbreak," several cases of cysticercosis have been identified in South Texas, a spokesman for San Antonio's Metro Health District told KENS-TV, San Antonio.
Magnetic resonance image showing multiple cysticerci within patient's brain
According to the Center for Disease Control, cysticercosis is an infection caused by the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium. Infection occurs when the tapeworm larvae are ingested, pass through the intestinal wall and enter the body to form cysticerci, or cysts. The cysts migrate throughout the body, resulting in symptoms that vary depending on whether they lodge in the muscles, the eyes, the brain or spinal cord.
Symptoms for Renaldo Ramirez, 50, of Houston, began with mild headaches.
The tile worker, who immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador 20 years ago, told KENS-TV he had been eating most of his meals at mobile kitchens because of the convenience, but after his ordeal with brain worms, he insisted on preparing his own food.
"He's scared now. He's scared of any food from outside," his sister, who onterpreted for him, said.
"It was a mild headache, but it wouldn't go away," Ramirez said. "It was just there and it wouldn't go away with Tylenol."
Clinic doctors gave him blood pressure medicine, but a few days later, he passed out and did not awaken for eight days.
Dr. Aaron Mohanty, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Texas Medical School, found and removed a cyst caused by a tapeworm larvae living in Ramirez's brain. Undiagnosed and untreated, he could have died within hours.
According to the CDC, infection from the tapeworm, which is found worldwide, occurs most often in rural, developing countries with poor hygiene where pigs are allowed to roam freely and eat human feces. This allows the tapeworm infection to be completed and the cycle to continue.
The risk for U.S. citizens has been considered rare due to strict food processing and handling regulations, especially for pork products, and generally high levels of hygiene.
The condition is very rare in Muslim countries where eating pork is forbidden.
"The cycle starts with a human that's infected with the tapeworm," said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, of the UT Houston Medical Center.
Failure to wash hands after using the restroom can result in contaminating food and infecting further victims.
"These eggs hatch in the intestine and go through the gut-wall and into the circulation where they get stuck somewhere," Ostrosky said.
Cysticercosis joins Morgellons disease, a mysterious infection seemingly similar to one documented 300 years ago, in the list of new illnesses spreading throughout South Texas.
While Morgellons disease has not been known to kill and it doesn't appear to be contagious, WND has reported its horrible symptoms are what worry doctors.
"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner in Austin who has treated a majority of Morgellons patients, told the San Antonio Express-News.
Patients infected with the disease get lesions that never heal.
Fibers removed from facial lesion of 3-year-old boy
"Sometimes little black specks come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, a Morgellons patient.
It's those different-colored fibers that pop out of the skin that may be the most bizarre symptom of the disease.
More than 100 cases have been reported in South Texas.
"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.
The South Texas outbreak's proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border comes at a time when the issues of illegal immigration, border security and possible amnesty for over 12 million illegal aliens are being debated in the U.S.
Despite Morgellons disease's distinctive symptoms and patients' tales of suffering, most of the medical community don't see the disease as real, with some doctors telling patients it's all in their head.
Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report. “That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin,” says the report. “TB’s swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MIDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000 with toxic side effects.
In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants (and it must be presumed, illegal aliens, since legal immigrants undergo health screenings before being given an immigrant visa). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to ‘foreign born’ people, who have up to eight times higher incidences. Approximately, 66 percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam.
According to the report, other health threats from illegals include:
· Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or “kissing bug disease,” is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, Trypanosoma cruzi, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs. No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected.
· Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico.
· Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Mexico. Recently, according to the report, there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills.
· Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants, as do intestinal parasites, says the report.
· Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas.
Also, in an article entitled, “Parasitic Infection Plagues States along Mexico Border” by Joyce Howard Price, as carried by the Washington Times, February 8, 2007, federal researchers say neurocysticercosis, a brain infection caused by a pork tapeworm, is a “growing public health problem in the U.S.,” especially in states bordering Mexico, where the disease is endemic.
Neurocysticercosis is the most common parasitic disease of the central nervous system according to a study jointly conducted by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and California public health officials, who reported that “international travel and immigration are bringing the disorder to areas where it is not endemic,” such as this country.
“Neurocysticercosis is the primary cause of epilepsy in endemic areas. This brain worm is very serious,” Victor C. Tsang, chief of the immunochemistry laboratory in the Parasitic Disease Division of the CDC. “Oral-fecal contamination is the standard route of transmission,” he said of the condition.
“Recent data indicate cysticercosis is an important cause of death in California,” Mr. Tsang and other authors wrote in a recent report on the disease published in the European medical journal Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.
A separate report in this months’s issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases found that nearly 60 percent of the 221 U.S. deaths from cysticercosis between 1990 and 2002 involved California residents. “Most patients [187, or 85 percent] were foreign-born, and 137 [62 percent] had emigrated from Mexico.” Carriers of this disease tend to be people from rural developing countries with poor hygiene, where pigs are allowed to roam freely and eat human feces. Mr. Tsang said the condition is rife in Mexico and other parts of Latin America and Central America and “in a large part of China and Africa.”
Legal immigrants and visitors must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residence.
Illegal aliens, however, cross our borders medically unexamined, carrying communicable diseases. This is not hypothetical. It is not just a possiblity. And it is not racist or jingoist or any other "ist" to bring it up: it is happening. It matters, and it should be of concern to the American public. Illegal alien nannies who care for children in private homes, as well as restaurant and other service workers who have never had physical examinations serve millions every day.
That is not to condemn all illegal aliens as dirty or diseased; all are not. But hundreds of thousands of them come from places where hygiene is not yet a part of the daily routine, and where disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment is not what we take for granted here.
Granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and their extended families (a predictable total population of some 70 million people over the next twenty years), who are predominately from Mexico, Central and South America, will undoubtedly have a grave impact on our public health scene for years to come. The more contagious diseases that transit our borders, the more impact it has, both short and long-term. Medical costs will escalate and the chances of infectious diseases becoming endemic to the U.S. increases proportionally.
LA RAZA WHORES Feinstein, and Boxer, when they’re not working behind our backs for BIT BY BIT BY BIT AMNESTY BUSH STYLE, are fighting for NO ID to vote, and NO ENGLISH only.
Mexican occupied gangland capital of America SANCTUARY CITY LOS ANGELES puts out more per month in welfare to illegals, $40 MILLION, than the entire country of Mexico for an entire year.
YOU BET THE INVADERS ARE VOTING. AND THEIR VOTING FOR THE LA RAZA AMNESTY CANDIDATES
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday July 16, 2008
Tonight, there is evidence that non-citizens have voted in past elections in states like Texas, Florida, Maryland and California. The Government Accountability Office found that
among 30,000 people called to jury duty in just one federal district court, nearly 1,000 were not citizens. We’ll have that alarming story.
From the Los Angeles Times
Latino groups unite to launch $5-million voter registration drive
Citing increased interest in national politics and the important issues facing immigrants and Latinos, nine organizations announce a nonpartisan effort to register up to 2 million new voters.
By Teresa Watanabe
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 19, 2008
Buoyed by a surge of political interest among immigrants and youth, nine national Latino organizations Friday announced a joint effort to register as many as 2 million new voters as presidential candidates from both parties vie for their community's increasingly influential support.
The $5-million nonpartisan voter registration effort, announced at a national Latino forum in downtown Los Angeles, comes amid an unprecedented campaign by community organizations and Spanish-language media to boost Latino civic participation -- and two new reports showing signs of success.
The U.S. government last week reported that the number of Mexican immigrants who became citizens last year swelled by 50%, with hundreds of thousands more in line to process their naturalization applications.
Community leaders Friday expressed even more excitement about a new study by the Texas-based William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan public policy and research organization that found more than 1 million Latinos had registered to vote during this primary season, including 500,000 in California and Texas.
The biggest buzz centered around who most of the new voters are: not new U.S. citizens as expected, but American-born youth under age 30. That demographic is notoriously difficult to reach but makes up three-fourths of the Latino community's 8 million eligible but unregistered voters, according to Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles.
"I was shocked by the increase in young new voters," Gonzalez said. "They're typically the hardest to reach."
Gonzalez said he had expected that newly naturalized, older Latinos would make up the bulk of new voters. But government delays in processing more than 1 million pending naturalization applications had jeopardized the chances of significantly boosting those numbers. Although U.S. officials told immigrant rights groups earlier this year that they aimed to process three-fourths of the pending applications by September, the New York-based Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government to expedite the process.
The new voter mobilization campaign would largely target younger voters through 125 organizing committees in 12 states, including California, Gonzalez said.
In separate efforts, New York-based Voto Latino has specifically targeted the youth vote with public service announcements by Cameron Diaz and other popular Latino actors, videos on MySpace.com, community blogs and advertisements on popular radio stations in the Bay Area. Since January, the effort has registered 18,000 young voters, according to Maria Teresa Petersen of Voto Latino.
Several young people who attended the Latino forum in Los Angeles said they were moved to register to vote for the first time this primary season because of excitement over Democratic candidate Barack Obama and concern over the nation's plummeting economy, immigration system and continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Omar Cruz, a 21-year-old public relations student at the University of Texas in El Paso, said he "never took interest" in politics before. But this primary season, he said, the election was the talk of the campus and several student groups organized voter registration drives. As a young Latino living near a military base and the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, he said ending U.S. involvement in Iraq and reforming the immigration system were urgent issues.
Cruz said he plans to vote for Obama -- as does Rafael Mora, a 24-year-old UC Santa Cruz student studying history and economics.
Both said Obama's multicultural background and modest economic upbringing appealed to them.
"The majority of Hispanics come from a humble background and may feel that Obama can relate to them more," Mora said.
Not all new young voters are pro-Obama, however. Valerie Simone, a 23-year-old El Paso College student, said she plans to vote for Republican candidate John McCain because she believes he would be more fiscally responsible and would crack down on welfare abuse.
"I feel Democrats vote more for handouts," she said.
The young Latinos were among an estimated 1,500 people from 300 organizations expected to attend the third annual National Latino Congreso, a three-day public policy forum that began Friday. Participants were expected to discuss ways to take action on more than 150 resolutions approved in previous gatherings, including appeals to end the war, investigate Latino student underachievement, better cooperate with Latin America and adopt immigration reform that would legalize the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants.
Presidential politics and immigration reform dominated discussion during Friday's opening media briefing.
Community leaders hailed both McCain and Obama for appearing at three Latino conventions in recent weeks. But leaders said both candidates still had work to do to obtain their vote.
John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he wanted to see the next president end immigration raids, put a moratorium on the use of local police in immigration enforcement, and appoint a Homeland Security chief who would suspend immigration raids during the 2010 Census to ensure a more accurate count, among other things.
Nativo Lopez, national president of the Mexican American Political Assn., added other issues, including rising income inequality and the disproportionate number of Latinos in the criminal justice system.
Although polls show that Obama is leading McCain by a margin of 2 to 1 among Latinos, Gonzalez said, neither candidate has locked up the vote.
"In addressing the substantive issues of concern to Latinos," Gonzalez said, "both candidates are lacking."
...............
IT’S NOT NEW AND IT’S NOT JUST IN THE MEXICAN WELFARE SANCTUARY STATE OF LOS ANGELES... illegals voting
1 in 6 Maricopa County voter registrations rejected! Illegal Aliens!
Posted on Thursday, August 17 @ 15:00:02 CDT
Topic: 1. Crimes Scenes illegal immigration laws MESA - Nearly one in six people who tried to register to vote in Maricopa County this year have been turned away because they lacked proof of citizenship required under a new state law, officials said.
Topics: Arizona law catches illegal aliens trying to register to vote! illegal immigration, state laws, elections, campaigns, fraud, American votes diminished.
8/16/2006
The Associated Press
The county recorder's office rejected 4,903 of 28,467 registration applications, or 16 percent of those wanting to vote, spokeswoman Yvonne Reed said.
Most of those people were probably legal citizens who for one reason or another lacked the required identification, Reed said. Rejected applicants are told why their applications were denied and how to reapply.
Pima and Pinal counties have lower but still significant rejection rates. Pinal County officials said they rejected 8 percent of new registrations, while Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said her office turned away 6 percent of those who tried to register.
The Maricopa County figures are down significantly from last year, the first since the law took effect, when 35 percent of the applications were disqualified.
"I think people are beginning to understand what they need to have when they register," Reed said.
The rules are mandated by Proposition 200, approved by voters in 2004. It requires new voters to show a driver's license or two other forms of identification when they register.
It also requires identification to be shown at the polls. If a voter does not have identification, they are allowed to vote but must provide proof of citizenship to the registrar before the ballot is tallied.
State and local officials have been working to let voters know about the new rules, with the Arizona Secretary of State launching a campaign earlier this year to remind voters to bring identification to their polling place.
The deadline to register for the Sept. 12 primary was Monday, and the deadline for the general election is Oct. 9.
Critics of the new law are worried that it will stop thousands of eligible citizens from voting in November's general election, the first statewide vote since the law took effect. Although targeting illegal immigrants, the law also impacts the poor and elderly, said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Phoenix,
"For many of these people, it's not easy to get identification," Meetze said.
Supporters say the law is needed, especially in light of recent protests by those who support immigrant rights.
"They marched under the banner of 'Today we march, tomorrow we vote,"' said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. "There is a massive effort under way to register illegal aliens in the country."He called the voting requirements "fair and reasonable" and said most residents should be able to provide photo identification.
ILLEGAL ALIEN SUPPORTERS PLAN TO REGISTER 1 MILLION Voters!
Immigrant rights advocates in the Valley and across the country are trying to transform the energy from last spring's huge street demonstrations into voter power this fall, hoping to mobilize a million new voters by fall.
Daniel Gonz?lez
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 3, 2006
By flooding polls, advocates aim to push the immigration debate away from the enforcement-heavy approach supported by many key lawmakers in favor of comprehensive immigration reform that offers a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and more visas to reunite families.
Their goal in Maricopa County is to register 22,000 new voters in time for the Nov. 7 election. To achieve that mark, a coalition of immigrant rights groups is launching a voter drive on Friday that will send dozens of workers into heavily concentrated Latino neighborhoods to knock on doors and stand outside markets and shopping centers to register new voters.
"We are building electoral power for our community so they can have a say, not only on the streets but at the ballot box," said Ruben Villarreal, an organizer for the Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights, a Phoenix-based organization working with We Are America Alliance, a national group. "Once we have a strong vote, I think politicians will think twice before they pass all these anti-immigrant bills."
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Phoenix and cities across the country after the House passed a tough immigration bill in December that would make being in the country illegally a felony. During some demonstrations, marches carried signs that said, "Today we march. Tomorrow we vote."
But rallying Latinos to vote can be a challenge. Statistics show Hispanics who are eligible to vote cast ballots at lower rates than other groups. Bringing immigrants and new voters into the fold requires a lots of education and encouragement, organizers of the coalition said.
Seeking voters
After the marches, the Senate passed its own immigration package supported by President Bush. It took a broader approach than the House's enforcement-only version and included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a temporary-worker program. But despite prodding by the president, Congress hasn't reached a compromise, prompting organizers of the street marches to focus on trying to influence the outcome of the November midterm election and the 2008 presidential election.
Organizers believe the untapped power of new immigrant voters and their children could have far-reaching political impact but acknowledge they face significant challenges getting immigrants to the polls and motivating them to naturalize.
A June study by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights estimates that by the 2008 presidential election, there will be 14.25 million potential voters among legal immigrants currently eligible to naturalize and U.S.-born children of immigrants ages 16 to 24.
Of those, 303,600 live in Arizona, which would have been more than enough to swing the 2004 presidential election in Arizona, according to the coalition. Bush won Arizona by 210,770 votes. Nationally, in 2004, 47 percent of Hispanics 18 and older cast ballots in the presidential election, compared with 67 percent for Anglos and 60 percent for Blacks, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Latino immigrants historically have lower voter participation rates than the general population, however, and lower naturalization rates than other immigrant groups.
"The typical voter is someone who owns a house, is highly educated, is financially stable and over 40. And in our community, you aren't going to find that," Villarreal said.
Still, Villarreal and others will concentrate on voter drives in Republican J.D. Hayworth's District 5, in parts of Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix, and Republican Jim Kolbe's District 8 in southern Arizona. Hayworth, a staunch immigration-control advocate, faces Democrat Harry Mitchell this fall, and a slew of candidates is battling for the seat Kolbe is giving up.
Casting ballots
There are signs besides the street marches that immigrants are eager to get more involved in the political process, in large part out of fear as the debate heats up.
As of May, citizenship applications in Phoenix increased by almost 40 percent, to 6,026 from 4,329, compared with the previous 12 months, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Nationally, citizenship applications are up 19 percent for the same periods, to 466,929 up from 393,628, the agency said.
Volunteers don't tell voters which candidate or political party to support, but they believe immigrant voters and Latinos are more likely to support candidates who favor comprehensive immigration reform, Villarreal said. Political candidates also are less likely to support hard-line measures when immigrants vote, advocates say.
"Elected officials are going to see there is power in our community, that (immigrants) are part of their constituency," said Lydia Hernandez, an organizer with the Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights.
On a recent Saturday morning, Juan Serrato and his wife, Claudia, lined up along with more than 100 other legal permanent residents in a cafeteria for help filling out applications at a citizenship workshop in Phoenix. The workshop at Bret R. Tarver Elementary School was the fifth citizenship workshop organized this summer by the Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights.
During the five workshops, more than 625 legal permanent residents applied for citizenship, organizer Teresa Castro said. Only U.S. citizens can cast ballots, and in Arizona, Proposition 200 requires everyone registering to vote to prove U.S. citizenship and to show ID at polls.
The coalition plans two more workshops Saturday, one in Phoenix, the other in Tucson. Juan Serrato, a native of Mexico, said he has been content remaining a legal permanent resident of the U.S. for the past 18 years. But he was prompted to apply for citizenship by those in Washington, D.C., calling for tightening the border and clamping down on immigration.
"The laws are getting so strict against us that I'm trying to protect myself and my family," said Serrato, a 44-year-old truck driver wearing a "USA" ball cap. "I'm afraid one day I could get deported."
Serrato said he was motivated to apply for citizenship by another reason: He has many family members and friends who would benefit if Congress passed immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for the undocumented.
"I want the right to vote so that I can help my people," he said.
...........
September 10, 2006
Los Angeles Times
Latino Activists Put Faith in Ballots
As immigration rights leaders assess gains and losses since rallies last spring, they turn their focus to the recruitment of 1 million new voters.
By Teresa Watanabe
Times Staff Writer
Has the immigrant rights movement fizzled?
At a national Latino conference that drew hundreds to downtown Los Angeles last week, movement leaders emphatically said no.
Although Congress has stalled action on broad immigration reform and Labor Day marches failed to mobilize wide support, activists said they were only now beginning to roll out the next stage of their battle: a massive effort to produce 1 million new Latino voters and U.S. citizens.
FOR THE RECORD:
Latino conference: An article in the Sept. 10 California section about a national Latino conference in downtown Los Angeles had a picture showing a man from the Pilipino Workers Center holding Philippine flags at a rally. The caption should have stated that the Sept. 9 rally, which followed the conference, also included immigration rights activists other than Latinos. Also, this and three other stories about immigration issues since April incorrectly identified Armando Navarro as chairman of UC Riverside's ethnic studies department. He is a professor in that department. —
"Now is not march time," Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles, said Saturday. "We're mobilizing voters. That's the big deal."
But immigration control advocates say the marches last spring doomed activists' efforts by alienating most Americans and strengthening support for stronger border control and opposition to legalization.
"The mass sea of illegal aliens bearing foreign flags and hostile placards really produced a pronounced backlash, from which they've never recovered," said John Keeley, spokesman for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
The movement's fate is in question just months after hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters startled the nation by pouring into the streets to protest a House bill that would criminalize undocumented immigrants and those who support them. Buoyed by their success, they helped push the U.S. Senate to pass a landmark bill increasing visas and offering legalization to many of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Since then, some activists acknowledge, their ranks have become demoralized as congressional action on the issue stalled over the summer and recent marches have fallen flat.
In Los Angeles, for instance, police estimated that only about 1,500 people turned out for a Labor Day weekend rally that organizers had predicted would draw as many as 50,000. And Cecilia Munoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, said some immigrants were reluctant to risk their jobs to march because the likelihood of legalization and other reform does not appear imminent.
"A lot of people feel a loss," immigrant activist Oscar Garcon said Saturday at the National Latino Congreso, which was billed as the most comprehensive gathering of Latino leaders in nearly 30 years. "They say, 'We demonstrated, we came out by the millions, but what did we change?' "
But he and others said a movement cannot fairly be measured by the size of its marches or its early setbacks, and some experts agree.
Louis DeSipio, a UC Irvine associate professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies, said it was premature to dismiss prospects for broad immigration reform.
He said such aims could take years to achieve. The 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants, for instance, took a decade to pass and did so abruptly, just as most members of Congress thought the provision dead.
DeSipio said movements cannot be built from marches alone.
"It's good they've moved away from the marches," he said. "Marches can get people's attention, but it doesn't necessarily get a higher percentage of the community involved in civic participation. That's what things like get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives do."
DeSipio said the ferment over immigration could in time lead to a surge in Latino voters similar to the one after the 1994 passage of Proposition 187. The measure would have denied health benefits to undocumented immigrants had it not been overturned in the courts.
The number of legal residents who became U.S. citizens increased from 434,000 in 1994 to more than 1 million in 1996; and Latino registered voters in California increased from 1.6 million in 1996 to 1.9 million in 2000, according to the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund in Los Angeles.
Activists argue that some preliminary data offer evidence of another surge. According to U.S. immigration statistics, the number of citizenship applications increased by 41.5% in May over last year, a far larger increase than in previous periods.
"This is one of many issues, and it's going to take time, but it will come," said Cristina Basurto, 32, a member of Women of Earth, a social justice organization, who attended a small rally after the conference Saturday near downtown. "I think people still have it in their hearts and still want to fight for what they believe in."
The number of new Latino voters grew by 35,000 in Los Angeles County from March to August, helping to boost their share of the electorate from 20% to 24% over last year, according to an analysis of Los Angeles County registrar-recorder data by the Latino officials' organization.
Marcelo Gaete, the organization's senior program director, said his staff used a surname dictionary to determine how many of the county's new voters were Latino.
Keeley, however, said the political landscape proves his point: A get-tough stand on immigration is a winning political message.
In Pennsylvania, for instance, he said Republican Sen. Rick Santorum is rapidly closing what had been a double-digit deficit in the polls in his race against his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Robert Casey Jr., by campaigning with a tough immigration message.
He also said congressional hearings on immigration and local town halls during the summer recess have convinced many legislators that constituents see border control as a top priority.
As a result, he said, "the chances are less than zero" of winning legalization this year.
Some Latino activists, including UC Riverside ethnic studies department Chairman Armando Navarro, agree that the movement for immigrant rights has lost steam. He said internal squabbling, a lack of leadership and a failure to organize immigrants for long-term political change had squandered their gains of the spring.
DeSipio and others, however, said activists had already scored a significant victory by so far stopping the House bill, especially the provision that would criminalize undocumented immigrants and those who aid them, from becoming law. Elements of that bill, including border enforcement measures, however, may still pass.
Now, activists say, they are gearing up to launch what they envision will be a long-term effort to mobilize Latino voters for elections this November and, more important, in 2008.
Two organizations — the Service Employees International Union and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project — have raised $7 million for national voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials plans to include 150,000 voter registration cards in La Opinion later this month and help sponsor another major workshop at the L.A. Convention Center to help immigrants apply for citizenship. A July workshop produced about 1,300 completed new citizenship applications, Gaete said.
Spanish-language radio DJs, who helped turn masses out for marches, have also begun to actively promote voter registration and citizenship efforts. Renan Almendarez "El Cucuy" Coello took his "Votos por America" campaign to 10 cities over two weeks last month.
DeSipio cautioned, however, that it was easier to register voters than to get them out to the polls.
"There's certainly the potential there," he said, "but it will require sustained investment and a lot of hard work."@
In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.
As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.
Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.
The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.
Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.
One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so-- or say so loudly or inspiringly.
Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.
Some of his more trusting followers are belatedly discovering that, as he "refines" his position on various issues, now that he has gotten their votes in the Democratic primaries and needs the votes of others in the coming general election.
Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.
The question of how to raise more revenue may be the economic issue but the political issue is whether socking it to "the rich" in the name of "fairness" gains more votes.
Since about half the people in the United States own stocks-- either directly or because their pension funds buy stocks-- socking it to people who earn capital gains is by no means socking it just to "the rich." But, again, that is one of the many facts that don't matter politically.
What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of "the people" against "the privileged."
If you are a nurse or mechanic who will be depending on your pension to take care of you when you retire-- as Social Security is unlikely to do-- you may not think of yourself as one of the privileged. But unless you connect the dots between capital gains tax rates and your retirement income, you may fall under the spell of the well-honed Obama rhetoric.
Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with higher minimum wage rates? Of course not.
Economists may point to studies done in countries around the world, showing that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower skilled and less experienced workers.
That's their problem. A politician's problem is how to look like he is for "the poor" and against those who are "exploiting" them. The facts are irrelevant to maintaining that political image.
Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues. Nothing is more popular than the notion that you can deal with dangers from other nations by talking with their leaders.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became enormously popular in the 1930s by sitting down and talking with Hitler, and announcing that their agreement had produced "peace in our time"-- just one year before the most catastrophic war in history began.
Senator Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating similar policies today-- and his political popularity is what it's all about. The consequences for the country come later.
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
--Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
--Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by:
-- Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
-- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by:
-- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), and others, Dec 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them."
-- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
-- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"
-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
"[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
In 1776 we revolted against a corrupt government that did nothing but gouge the working class for money so that the filthy rich could get richer. Now after 230 years we are in the same predicament. Just that some people are just too stupid and stubborn to realize it.
My ancestors (and probably yours too) worked hard and made large sacrifices so that we could live in peace and prosperity. I also served in the Army back in the early eighties and helped protect our country. I’ll be damned if I will sit back and do nothing as the vermin that has infested our government destroys our economy and sells us out to communist countries like China just so they can pocket a few extra bucks.
I refuse to do nothing while assholes like Bush and Cheney ruin our reputation of being a peaceful, helpful nation and not just a bully that will attack any one who disagrees with us. And then help to destroy our economy and our happy way of life.
No I refuse to run way. I plan to stay and fight this evil corrupt government to bring back peace and prosperity to what was once the greatest nation in the world but is now the biggest pile of crap on the planet thanks to our president and our congress.
First of all....the war you say that was based on lies, was approved not by the President, but the Congress. You're obviously too stupid to understand that the continuance of bickering, investigations, doing nothing...gets us no where. It just continues to perpetuate the divide between parties rather than moving forward, working together to help solve some of the issues we face today as Americans.
At some point in time, the only way we are going to get anywhere is to look towards the future instead of hanging out in the past. Put your egos aside, work together and move forward.
Have you heard a single word ever about big banker’s rape of consumers by old Feinstein and her lap doggie bitch Barbara Boxer? They’re too busy making money off elected office and busting their fat asses to get floods more of illegals to depress wages in CA even more.
HAVE YOU NOTICED... the walking morons in Sacramento never, ever have a word to say about the Mexican invasion? The state drifts into bankruptcy running fifteen billion a year in deficits while it also pays out fifteen billion per year in social services to illegals.
Los Angeles alone spends $40 million per month to illegals on welfare.
And then there’s the staggering crime wave that comes with the Mexican occupation. What does that cost? California has the largest prison system in the country and half of it are illegals still actively participating Mexican drug rings.
Someone tell the walking morons in Sacramento, along with the walking Austrian steroid circus freak Arno, that there would be greater tax revenues if people made something to tax. Right now half the labor force are miserably paid illegals. In Los Angeles County alone 47% of the work force is illegal.
No, the walking morons in Sacramento are too busy servicing the corporate class. Right now their passion is to make sure that there’s no regulation of the sub-prime pillagers, like La Raza donors Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Countrywide.
The walking morons are also sabotaging E-VERIFY which would ID illegals with stolen social security numbers. Can’t have that. These clowns only keep their campaign bribes coming if they depress wages for their corporate paymasters.
Besides the annual cost to the American people of being Mexico’s welfare basket of 300 billion per year, the cost of the Mexican invasion and occupation in depressed wages for legals is 300 billion.
Every year there are 4 million American people that fall into poverty and another two million illegal Mexicans that hop the border they want to keep wide open.
And they’re still working in the corporate board back rooms for bit by bit by bit amnesty.
State legislators consider increasing income taxes on the wealthy
1. California's tax rate is the nation's highest, but budget woes are prompting proposals to raise it further. Tax foes say it could backfire by driving businesses and top earners out of the state.By Evan Halper
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 18, 2008
SACRAMENTO -- — California has long had a reputation for soaking the rich, claiming a particularly large slice of their earnings to feed its growing government. Now, legislative Democrats want to push it further.
Their plan to balance the state budget would raise the wealthiest Californians' income taxes -- already the highest in the nation -- to a level not seen anywhere in the country in years. After years of income taxes steadily dropping elsewhere, California would raise the effective rate on those earning at least $1 million to 12%, more than twice the rate in most other states that have income taxes.
Although legislative leaders are weighing a plan to balance the budget in part by raiding transportation funds and local government accounts, many Democrats are still rallying around an income-tax increase as the best way to bring the budget into balance over the long term.
Economists and money managers, though, are wondering whether California would be returning to this well one time too many. There is, they say, a point at which the cash infusion is outweighed by damage done to the economy: Entrepreneurs get driven away. Profits get stowed in tax shelters. Companies shelve plans for expansion.
"The more a tax sticks out like a sore thumb, the more taxpayers will look for ways to avoid it," said Robert Ward, deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y. California's income tax on its highest earners "would be a significantly higher rate than in any other state." Rhode Island's is the next highest, at 9.9%.
California budget delayed at a cost
LOANS TO STATE WOULD REQUIRE SECURITY ON TOP OF INTEREST
By Mike Zapler
Mercury NewsSacramento Bureau
06/25/2008
California Budget Project
SACRAMENTO - Could the state of California, a $100 billion-plus enterprise, run short of cash to pay its bills this summer?
The short answer: Yes. In fact, officials are already preparing for the possibility - and it could cost taxpayers dearly.
Triggered by a staggering $15.2 billion deficit, a deteriorating economy, and partisan gridlock in the Legislature, the cash crunch could arrive in late August or September.
If lawmakers can't agree on a budget, it would force the state to take out a high-risk loan of more than $10 billion - and pay a premium of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars as security, money that could otherwise be spent on schools, health care and other needs. Beyond that, the state's credit rating could be downgraded, raising the interest costs of future borrowing.
A quick resolution of the budget - by early to mid-August at the latest - could stave off the need for such a loan, officials say. But opinions differ whether the specter of a cash shortfall will be enough to overcome fierce ideological divisions in the Capitol over how to resolve the deficit. Last year, partisan wrangling delayed a budget until late August, and at that time lawmakers were haggling over less than $1 billion.
"I think there are a significant number of legislators who think it's OK for the state to go over the fiscal cliff," state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, said in an interview. "That would be a very reckless thing to do." He declined to name which lawmakers he had in mind.
However reckless the scenario might seem, it has happened before. During the last serious budget crisis, in 2003, the state secured the same type of loan - called a revenue anticipation warrant - of $11 billion. Because California's finances were so shaky, the state had to pay $140 million for "credit enhancement" in addition to interest payments exceeding $120 million, according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's finance department.
Experts say the costs could be even higher this year thanks to the meltdown in the nation's credit market. Wall Street lenders are also likely to look askance at a budget that includes gimmicks that push the deficit into future years.
"The state's financial problems and Wall Street's financial problems are hitting at once," said Jason Dickerson, a principal fiscal and policy analyst for the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office. "That makes the state's . . . borrowing much more difficult, and potentially much more costly."
Dickerson said securing "credit enhancement" for a $10 billion loan could cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, before interest payments.
How much of an impetus that will be in budget talks is anyone's guess. Republicans, who hold effective veto power over the budget, have vowed to block any tax increases; Democrats insist it's impossible to close the budget gap without new tax revenues.
Already, the Legislature missed a constitutional deadline of June 15 to pass a budget, and a July 1 deadline to enact a spending plan is almost certain to pass, too, without a deal.
Still, lawmakers say they're taking the looming cash crunch seriously.
"It's very real and it puts pressure on legislators to get a resolution as quickly as possible," said Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-Chula Vista, chairwoman of the Senate budget committee. At the same time, "We don't want to devastate the state in the process. You can't close schools and universities and hospitals and think the state is going to continue to have economic prosperity."
Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Sacramento, said that the premium on a loan would "not even come close to" the billions of dollars in tax increases that Democrats are seeking - and which the GOP has vowed to resist. But he also agreed that the cash shortage is real.
"It does and should put a significant amount of pressure on us to move as quickly as possible," Niello said. "But we certainly don't want to pass a bad budget, either."
State Controller John Chiang, who would be responsible for securing a high-risk loan if it comes to that, said legislators "need to act . . . as quickly as possible. I think they understand the serious nature of the cash situation, but I also think they have strong differences over how to resolve the budget."
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“The resulting dislocations caused by a deteriorating quality of life, which has seen large numbers of Californians fleeing the state, has been more than made up for by surging net gains in the population fueled by immigration.”
News Release: CALIFORNIA IS THE DIM PICTURE OF AMERICA'S FUTURE
Visit CAPS website at www.capsweb.org.
The Golden State today bodes ill for the U.S. of tomorrow.
SANTA BARBARA--October 5, 2006--America prepares to surge past a population of 300 million people sometime around October 15, one need only to look at what has happened to California over the past two decades to see what is in store for the rest of the nation.
"Three hundred million people is neither an achievement nor an endpoint, but just a landmark on the way to a billion people," said Diana Hull, President of Californians for Population Stabilization. "It is time to remind everyone again, that perpetual growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell."
Hull delivered her comments at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where some of the nation's top population and immigration experts warned that 300 million people is nothing to celebrate.
The grim foretelling in California of the impacts that massive population growth will have on the nation's environment and quality-of-life demonstrates how fast the 'tipping-point' can be reached. "The California Experiment is an example of how far and how fast a magnificent natural inheritance can be squandered and plundered," Hull said. "How fast the skid and how far the fall."
Hull, a behavioral scientist trained in demography who served on the Sierra Club's Population Committee and the Southern California Demographic Forum, said California's cultural penchant for fast-if-easy living was quickly outstripped by its unchecked appetite for simply 'more.'
"In our state, the race to gargantuan-size has progressed so far and so fast that we can barely move," Hull said. "Freeways have become like doors that the morbidly obese can no longer fit through, thus the size of everything has to expand."
It's unlikely that Governor Pat Brown, who invested heavily in California's infrastructure, could have envisioned in 1965 the human tidal wave that would eventually swamp his fabled public works.
But it was in 1965 that real sustained population growth began in California that would take on what Hull described as "astonishing momentum" over the next four decades. In 1965, California's population was just over 18 million people. Today, California has more than 37 million people, and sustains a net-gain of about 500,000 more people annually.
The vast majority of people flowing into the state, Hull said, are legal and illegal immigrants; the vast majority of them are poor and uneducated and require social assistance. The resulting cultural arguments over immigration have obscured the most basic question the state government and the media should be openly discussing: how many more people can the state take?
The answer may be found in the devolution of California over the past four decades, from a sun-dappled state that could provide its people an enviable quality of life to a gritty jumble of jammed public schools, failing emergency rooms, overwhelmed social services, vanishing green space and suburban sprawl so vast that three hour commutes to and from work are now a reality.
As Hull noted on Tuesday, the overpopulating of California occurred not with popular support, but rather amid a collective slumber.
"The state became a pilot project in a failed social experiment that no one had agreed to beforehand," she said. "All around us there were more people, more traffic, more crowds, more long waits, more houses and more shopping centers…but never enough."
The resulting dislocations caused by a deteriorating quality of life, which has seen large numbers of Californians fleeing the state, has been more than made up for by surging net gains in the population fueled by immigration.
Yet amazingly, the nation's bi-partisan leadership at virtually every level of the federal government seems unwilling to learn from what has happened to California, but to the contrary seem more than prepared to let California's fate become America's future.
Despite four decades of hard evidence of the potentially catastrophic impacts--particularly for the environment--of unmanaged population growth, Hull said the nation's leaders have been shamefully silent.
"As demographic momentum accelerated, the pace of this growth and the changes it wrought were never systematically observed and monitored, nor even officially acknowledged," she said. "And little interest was shown in evaluating outcomes."
Those outcomes are evident everyday now in California, from the implosion of trauma centers across Los Angeles County to the bulldozing of some of the most fertile farmland in the Central Valley to make way for more homes.
"The two very worst outcomes are that infrastructure over-use wears everything out faster than we can replace it," Hull said. "And there is an insatiable demand on natural resources that are now unable to replenish themselves."
ABOUT CALIFORNIANS FOR POPULATION STABILIZATION (CAPS)
Californians for Population Stabilization is a non-profit organization dedicated to formulating and advancing policies and programs designed to stabilize the population of California at a level which will preserve a good quality of life for all Californians; www.capsweb.org.
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June 12, 1989 Wall Street Journal P1 C1
California Babel
The City of the Future Is a Troubling Prospect If It's to Be Los Angeles
To Cultural Stew Add Slums, Crime, Pollution, Traffic, - Film Fantasies and Tofu
Economic Base: Cheap Labor
By FREDERICK ROSE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LOS ANGELES--At night, the cityscape seen from the police helicopter is a dream.
In the distance, lights of futuristic office towers shine across a sea of street lamps and houses. Through a man-made canyon of buildings, a ribbon of commuters' taillights winds northward into mountains festooned with luxury housing.
But suddenly, the chopper drops and the beam of its spotlight pierces the darkness of a slum. A dozen gang members scurry to escape the glare like ants fleeing an approaching footstep. The youths leave behind a corpse.
A mecca of culture and economic energy, a wilderness of crime and poverty: Los Angeles is an urban vision in two parts, bigger and more powerful, yet darker, than its reputation. It has been the city of the future for so long that clues to the actual prospects of Los Angeles, and perhaps of urban America, are hard to separate from the myth.
Los Angeles is the invention of engineers who brought water, bankers who brought money and Immigrants who brought dreams. Local movie makers have interpreted America to itself. The suburb was created here after World War II. The Watts riots of 1965 set off an era of urban violence.
Still, Los Angeles often is taken no more seriously than surfing and skateboards, and there's little sense in Southern California of the wider world. Showbiz and unreality are as pervasive as the California sunshine. Mystery writer Raymond Chandler once grumped that the place had "no more personality than a paper cup." But the cup is overflowing in the nation's second-largest city. The home of Beach Boys idylls is a center of economic and political might-with problems as big as its promise.
More than any other urban area--practically speaking, it's a region 100 miles in diameter-Los Angeles is today a laboratory of the American metropolis. But if Los Angeles continues to set the pace for the nation, other cities may be in for a shock.
New tides of immigration, trade and capital link the city to Asia and to Central and South America. Its U.S. identity is being stirred into a cultural stew, an extraordinary example of which is a Korean owned lunch counter that specializes in (supposedly) kosher burritos.
Cheap labor and ready capital are making the region as commercially fertile as the Far East. While high technology, aerospace industry and movie studios give Los Angeles its sheen, sweatshops provide much of its industrial muscle. Quickly established and fiercely competitive, tiny factories making everything from women's clothes to nuts and bolts may be crucial to the city's future.
The region's current population of about 13.5 million will grow to challenge metropolitan New York City's sometime around the year 2010. "The sheer power of the population explosion will be more than anyone can imagine," says John C. Cushman III, a developer of commercial real estate. Highways, clogged even today, will have to carry still more people. Water must be found to slake the thirst of additional millions. And the air, barely breathable at times, will have to be improved.
Removing Mountains
Already, mountains more than 60 miles from the city's center are being leveled to build thousands of new houses to make greater Los Angeles even bigger. And futurists expect that Los Angeles, the symbol of urban sprawl, will become denser, stacked atop itself.
Bungalows built in sleepier days of single-family homes are being demolished to make way for apartment blocks packed with new Americans--Hispanics, Asians, Armenians-who are contributing to the city's economic strength and remaking its culture.
* * *
The pink-walled confines of Hollywood High School haven't changed much since that day Lana Turner sneaked out of typing class and was "discovered." The rest is movie history. Kids still hang out on Sunset Boulevard in front of school. Lockers still clang in tiled halls. And in the English class that Judith Campbell teaches, 12th graders are pondering Moliere's 17th-century play "Tartuffe," in which a character is menaced with an arranged marriage.
"That doesn't happen any more," objects Latanya Miller. But Ludwig Jingozian, the son of Armenian immigrants, disagrees. "Get real," he urges. Most classmates take his side. And nearly half the students raise their hands when the teacher asks if they know someone whose marriage was arranged.
"There is a swirl of cultures here," Mrs. Campbell later observes. Students in this class alone speak nearly a dozen mother tongues-Spanish, Korean, Armenian, Romanian, Arabic and Tagalog among them.
More Hispanic Schoolchildren
By 2010, the student population in Los Angeles-area schools will swell to 3.2 million, up a third from 1980, according to the Southern California Association of Governments. The proportion of non-Hispanic white children will tumble to 29% from 50%, practically a mirror image of the change in the number of Hispanic youngsters.
Anglos will soon be displaced as the city's majority, dropping to 41% of the population by 2010 from 61% in 1980. The proportion of Hispanics will jump to 40% from 24%, with the black and Asian populations inching up.
Seers suggest that Los Angeles will not be an assimilationist "melting pot" but will remain a mix of cultures and economies that are discrete and retain strong ties to other countries. LA 2000, a committee appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to look at the city's future, recently concluded that Los Angeles in the next century will be "not just a bigger world center, but a kind of international city of cities . . . "
Foreign investment in the city is soaring. More than half of downtown commercial space is foreign-owned. "Los Angeles," predicts Richard Weinstein, the dean of architecture and urban studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, "will be the first American metropolis of the Third World."
* * *
South Normandy Street, like a hundred others in Los Angeles, runs in a straight line between dusty, garage-like buildings of concrete and steel. Every block or so, there's a doughnut or taco shop. A few trucks linger. Grunting men push goods about. You might not guess that this is the heart of industrial Los Angeles- and potentially a central part of a new industrial revolution. Ducking inside buildings, a visitor sees figures bent over any of a number of production devices-sewing machines, welding torches, electric circuits, furniture sanders. At Brek Manufacturing Co., a big green machine towers above Salvadore Castenada as its whirring tool, guided by computer, carves an intricate airliner part from aluminum.
One Shop, Hundreds Like It
Mr. Castenada, who is from Guadalajara, Mexico, is one of nine men on an all Hispanic shop crew at tiny Brek, one of hundreds of such companies serving the aerospace industry. Northrop Corp. is one of Brek's biggest customers.
There are no committees here at Brek, no middle managers to direct production. And no labor union. When Arthur Gene Price, Brek's beefy owner and president, figures a job needs doing, he walks out of his office and orders it. It's simple, and it works. Last year, Brek, with barely a dozen employees, had sales of about $2.5 million.
Multiply that thousands of times and you have the foundation of the city's future: a tapestry of Lilliputian factories that upends 20th-century industrial practice. If the new theories hold true, giant factories won't be needed to produce goods from scratch. Instead, dozens of separate facilities will build parts for assembly by a final contractor.
Northrop, for example, estimates that about 75% of its production costs now represent work done outside the company by concerns such as Brek. Indeed, while basic industries--steel and rubber-were being shuttered in traditional industrial states, manufacturing employment increased in California, climbing 24% between 1970 an 1985. Los Angeles County--rarely thought of as an industrial stronghold-leads the nation in manufacturing shipments.
But in this small industrial revolution lies the risk of a larger upheaval, given the wages and working conditions that prevail in the many little nonunion factories. That pressures might someday explode in violence of the sort once seen in Watts worries people like Lewis H. Butler, the president of California Tomorrow, a think tank specializing in immigration and ethnicity. "Los Angeles could be so fragmented that it could be a very unpleasant place to live," he says.
* * *
But, increasingly, the sociological skyline of Los Angeles looks like the vista from the police helicopter: a glow of wealth on the horizon and ugliness below. The dream that came for many Californians is dying now, as well-paid union jobs disappear, housing costs multiply and public aid to education falls behind inflation.
People drawn for decades to Southern California are starting to leave. Some 860,000 will depart the Los Angeles area in the next 20 years, projections suggest. (Despite that, the region's population is expected to rise by 4.9 million, to 18.4 million because of immigration and high birth rates.)
Reasons to Complain
As Los Angeles grows, its citizens grow more inclined to grouse. Nearly two thirds of those polled recently by the Los Angeles Times said the city is a worse place to live than 15 years ago. Nearly half said they had considered moving out within the past year, citing crime, traffic and high living costs.
Gang violence is widespread. Teen-age killings are a staple of local television news. One junior high school decided recently to build a wall to protect its playground from gunfire.
The solid, semiskilled manual jobs that for years supported the city's blue-collar middle class--black and white--are declining. A study by Goetz Wolff, an economist with the county of Los Angeles, finds that the number of skilled manufacturing jobs climbed 9% in the past decade; so did the number of unskilled jobs. But in the middle, in the sorts of positions once filled by semiskilled auto assemblers and steelmill workers employment declined 12%. "Manufacturing jobs were the ladder for social progress; now, several rungs are missing," says Mr. Wolff. Like 19th-century London, where dark factories dependent on sweatshop wages supported a worldly city at its peak of wealth and power, Los Angeles may face an era of economic disparity. Allen J. Scott. a UCLA geographer who has written extensively about the city's industry and studied its growth, speculates that "it could be a Dickensian hell."
[The above quotes are excerpts from a longer article that you may retrieve on Dow Jones News Retrieval.] @
I ended up losing my wallet - but there are 3 men in the hospital in serious condiion because of me. I am not sure how I was able to hit these men like this, but I was.
I was actually approached by a KGO reporter asking me if i felt guilty for the harm I had caused the men in this 'incident'. My only response was that these men were lucky I was rusty in responding to their attack.
My issue is that I have aslo received an email from the mom of one of these hoodlums. She is upset that I hurt her son so badly.
I am sorry - but these attackers deserve to be dead. Nothing less.
So are you going to blame Clinton for the sky being blue as well??
You guys blame Clinton for everything under the sun..
BTW: I believe that it was NIXON that "normalized" relations with the Chinese - gave them all sorts of goodies.. And GW Bush has allowed the Chinese to get away with murder here in the US
Buddy, one of the Democratic priorities is to pay off the enormous debt that the GOP ran up with them so that we don't have to be beholding to them and can hold their feet to the fire when their products kill our citizens and our pets. Until then we have to suck it up while they force us buy their inferior products.
I'll take my chances with Obama - he couldn't worse than GW Bush - even Nixon wasn't as bad as GW Bush
The three network anchors will travel to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip, adding their high-wattage spotlight to what is already shaping up as a major media extravaganza.
Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.
John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months, all unaccompanied by a single network anchor.